This year we have the distinct pleasure of hosting updates from Dr. Matt Finch, with whom we’ve worked on a number of LAIP features, as he serves as Creative in Residence at the State Library of Queensland, Australia. Today Matt fills us in on a number of music-focused, library-incubated projects and explores ways that libraries of different types can support the work and creative life of musicians and audio artists.

by Matt Finch

Take those pieces of information you store, those cultural artefacts, those tales and texts, on shelves and servers, in repositories and reading rooms – take them, and make a symphony.

Let your collection items relate to one another as one instrument, one song, one voice can relate to another: in counterpoint or harmony, in meticulous orchestration or complete dissonance.

Sing me a library.

Haunted houses, teen movies, and wintry explorations

We’re in suburban Melbourne, walking across the garden to what looks like an ordinary summer-house, except the lights from within glow an eerie purple, and the knocker on the door takes the form of a severed hand.

This is the studio of multimedia artist Peter Miller, aka Scribbletronics – a composer, sound designer, and digital creator whose work includes sound design for movies like The Ring and Rango, ambient installations for Qantas airlines, and Time Travel Detectives, a library youth event previously featured on this site.

We’re here to see a preview of his latest piece Nightcap, a montage derived from William Castle’s 1959 schlock horror House on Haunted Hill.

“I’m not a typical musician; I love to trawl through literature and pop culture,” Peter Miller says. “I’m particularly enamoured of out-of-context voice clips, and examining slices of media, trying to hone in on the most engaging thing about them.”

House on Haunted Hill is in the public domain, which makes it ripe for use in this way.

“I love this movie, but I’m aware a lot of people might find it corny these days,” says Peter. “My efforts are to distil the ‘mood’ from it in musical form, and re-interpret that in a new way. I am attempting to provide ‘re-experience’, if you like; turning a mirror to something in order that you see it in a new or surprising or challenging way.”

For Peter, this goes straight to the heart of 21st century librarianship:

“I think a lot of people view a library as ‘a place you go to borrow a book’, rather than somewhere that provides a portal into re-experience. Yet a really important function of libraries in this era is to reinterpret the great resource of knowledge that they contain, in a way that strips away the fusty connotation of what a library is and lets people peer into the wealth of possibility that lies there for anyone to access.”

Work like Nightcap has been technically possible for a long while now, but increasingly cheap and powerful home editing technology, plus ever-more-easy access to digital video archives, mean that libraries should actively be thinking about how to encourage, provoke, and inspire this kind of work with their holdings.

It’s not just about creativity, either; this kind of montage can also powerfully serve research, critique, and polemic. British director and critic Charlie Lyne’sBeyond Clueless (2014)offers an analysis of teen movies through editing – the non-fiction equivalent of Peter Miller’s spooky horror project.

Lyne’s documentary creates a supercut universe where the characters from The Craft, Mean Girls, Heathers, 10 Things I Hate About You and Clueless itself are all walking through the same halls, taking lunch together, jostling and gossiping and revealing the common structures of their Hollywood adolescence.

Musicality is an important component of Lyne’s argument; a soundtrack by the English indie band Summer Camp helps create a sense of continuous flow through the jumble of disparate movie references.

Lyne isn’t the first critic to nibble at the boundaries between musicality and non-fiction. The eccentric pianist Glenn Gould, after his retirement from concert performances, devoted increasing amounts of time to “polyphonic documentaries” for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC).

These shows wove together interviews and ambient sound, creating immersive stories that captured a sense of place and history. The Idea of North, which can still be heard on the CBC website, is one of the first and most renowned exemplars of how one can juxtapose items of non-fiction in a musical way.

Gould’s legacy for libraries was also a material one; after his death, Canadian librarians acquired much of his archive, including a substantial amount of realia – not least of which was his beloved Steinway piano.

Maureen Nevins of Libraries & Archives Canada explains:

“The National Library of Canada held and preserved the largest collection of musical Canadiana including the archives of many prominent Canadian musicians. Of particular concern was that the Steinway CD 318 piano, because of its specially adapted action and mechanism, be kept in active and playing order, to be available to researchers and scholars studying the technique of Gould. This would only be possible if the instrument on which he made both practice tapes and final recordings was in the same location as his archives. The piano was an integral research tool, because of its special modifications.”

In 1980s Canada, a piano could already be seen as a valuable working research instrument within a library. Nearly forty years later, should we be looking at directly linking music technology to our collections?

Spaces of Song

In a forthcoming issue of Australian library magazine Incite, librarian Rob Thomson reports back on a visit to Studios 301, the longest running and largest professional recording studio in the southern hemisphere. He writes:

“Whilst we are very different industries, we also share many similar things. We both thrive on technology and are burdened by the need to sometimes cater for obsolete technologies and redundant hardware. We have both been digitally disrupted!

“We both cater for collaboration and creation. Music studios are the place where musicians and sound engineers collaborate to produce fantastic sounds and music.…Studios 301 has shown me that we need to get out of our library-land and engage with others in the creative industries as we seem to have a lot more in common than what differentiates us.”

Why aren’t we using music and its metaphors to inform the way we store and share knowledge, information, and culture?

After all, libraries are increasingly becoming spaces of song. Even in countries with relatively beleaguered public library services, like the UK, musical projects such as Get Loud in Libraries continue to go from strength to strength.

As Get Loud’s Stewart Parsons told Library as Incubator,

“…a library user should leave a library a more enlightened, brighter, happier, braver, more empowered individual compared to the same person that first went in.

“But for that to happen, for that surging flood of the imagination to take place, the original resources often need to be re-imagined. To be presented in a way that is fresh and appealing and meaningful.”

The British public library landscape also includes players like England’s Commoners Choir – a self-proclaimed blend of 80s anarchist punk provocateurs Crass and a Mormon Tabernacle choir, who “sing about stuff that needs singing about”.

That takes the form of specially written songs like “Mechanical Moveable Type”, performed in Leeds Central Library as a tribute to the printed press.

As founder Boff Whalley explains, “Libraries were the physical embodiment of the opening up of knowledge. Especially to the working class. They made knowledge inclusive and welcoming. Choirs are about that physical welcoming, and in Commoners we think that we can couple that communality with spreading knowledge and ideas.”

If we are serious about seeing the public library as a “community hub”, we might expect to see more of this in months and years to come – for what unites us like the power of music?

Amy Walduck is Queensland State Manager for the Australian library association ALIA, as well as being a saxophonist and music librarian.

She says: “We cannot consider the future of music in libraries without considering the future of music librarians. Music is a language – just like French, Spanish or mathematics – and this cannot be learnt in a crash course on the job. There are already many great examples of music related programming and events happening but imagine how effectively we could engage with our communities if there was a specialist role.”

“Our libraries could be used as alternate performance and rehearsal venues for up-and-coming musicians, have live music at more events, offer learning programs for how to master the business side of music, technology training for creating music videos on your mobile device and back all of this up with special collections and online resources. I’m getting excited just thinking about it!”

Some pioneers are already using technology to push the boundaries of this approach, exploring voice and musicality in collection discovery. Back in 2012, Chris Gaul featured in Library as Incubator talking about his residency at the library of the University of Technology Sydney, exploring intuitive and creative ways for people to understand library collections and services.

Chris’ audio innovations at UTS included Call Number Telephone, which allowed listeners to browse a directory using a rotary phone handset to hear books from the collection. Chris also created Library Frequency Tuner, which allowed listeners to hear books on the Dewey Decimal “frequencies” of a device like an old radio set.

As Chris Gaul puts it, “Libraries are incubators of moments of insight. These moments … require a wandering, curious disposition and art can be a very useful tool for encouraging this frame of mind.”

One possible next step would be to build sound, too, into pragmatic library applications, using projects like Chris Gaul’s as a springboard to incorporate non-traditional collection discovery into the everyday working life of the library. The sheer size of digital collections requires new tools for exploring outside the constraints of traditional browsing; exploration of senses other than the visual; and literacies beyond those based on the written word.

Who will be building this future? In Australia, it could include musician-technologists like Joel Edmondson and specialist librarians like Ryan Weymouth.

Joel is head of QMusic, the peak body for the music industry in the state of Queensland, but his background also includes research into the creation of digital instruments for young people with learning or behavioural difficulties.

“Music has become part of everyday life,” he said in a recent interview for Curious, Mysterious, Marvellous, Electrical. “We’ve accepted that we live in a mediated landscape. It’s just a question of scale now, the fact that music can be pretty much everywhere.”

Joel questions how we might see our relationship to music change in an increasingly digital age.

“If you’re serious about music being a tool for self awareness and that being a useful, relevant thing – especially in the digital age – you’re looking for it to play a bigger role in life than just audience engagement.

“I’m interested in offices which read your biometric data and create a playlist based on the tasks you’re doing, to help you get through the day productively. I’m interested in the music we can offer people in situations like end of life care; in all the scenarios, high stakes and low, where we might see music make a difference.”

Ryan Weymouth, music librarian at the Queensland Conservatorium in Brisbane, sees how these digital developments will also affect the development of future music collections.

Ryan believes that institutions’ increasing recognition of cultural diversity will play a part in the ongoing relevance of music librarianship: “Western Art Music (music by dead white guys from Europe) is important but no longer the future. There is a whole world of music out there to be studied, collected, and curated. There is potential for music librarians to work as ethnomusicological researchers.”

As an example, he points to the Conservatorium’s Sound Futures project. This uses digital media to explore the issue of “music sustainability” – the way that developments in technology can threaten or sustain specific musical genres and cultures. By treating musical cultures as ecosystems, they aim to protect and preserve endangered forms of musical expression – and this ecological approach may also have payoffs for libraries seeking to integrate music and community in the 21st century.

Coda

“Music is such an effective communication tool,” says Amy Walduck of ALIA Queensland. “We should embrace and utilise the skills of music experts to deliver dynamic library experiences.”

2016 was the year Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, collapsing the distinction between libraries’ traditional bookish holdings and the world of popular music.

We all know the modern library is a place of play and exploration anyway – so, whatever community you serve, there’s never been a better time to rethink how musical your institution should be.

Sunday, 25 December 2016

Merry Christmas. It seems even robots are getting in the holiday spirit this year. So if your plans for today include unwrapping gifts under a Christmas tree (with lots and lots of flowers) perhaps you should be listening to this bizarre Christmas Carol created by a neural network. (And if […]

It’s time for a few Favorite Things posts, an annual series where we pull together a set of posts from the past year under a specific topic. To our minds, libraries are (and should be) activist spaces and we see the arts and creativity programming as one way to engage communities in meaningful, thought-provoking, and yes, even uncomfortable dialogues and conversations. While there are many many projects and programs that we’ve featured that could fall under the umbrella of Art & Activism, I’m just going to highlight a few today.

Community Art Project at Amityville Public Library: Staff at Amityville Public Library worked with community members to offer an inclusive art gallery, inviting pieces from all ages and levels of expertise. One challenge? To find enough space to display the artwork in a building with no formal gallery!

Audio Storytelling at DCPL: Let’s embrace the idea of storytelling as activist and an intrinsic aspect of social justice, particularly for traditionally underrepresented groups. The DCPL’s new emphasis on audio storytelling in the forms of interviews and first-person narratives offers a platform for people to capture their own lived experiences for posterity.

Why Libraries Matter: My Experience Planning a Black Lives Matter Program: Tough and important conversations belong in libraries, so what can/should it look like when an academic library takes this role seriously and head-on? Our contributor provides an overview of a two-night library program that explored serious questions and experiences for students, and describes pushback and ideas for handling similar situations in the future.

The Labs at CLP: Our ongoing series of posts about the Carnegie of Library-Pittsburgh’s youth-centered maker program, The Labs, continues to highlight the activist work of getting out into the community and connecting with local youth through maker experiences and creative opportunities.

Welcome to Bronzeville at Milwaukee Public Library: This library/performing artist partnership welcomed teenagers into the library as a safe space for exploring their relationship to their neighborhood and to each other through performance art and poetry.

Library Takeover: Now on at Madison Public Library in Madison, Wisconsin, the original idea of Library Takeover (developed by UK organizations Apples & Snakes and Half-Moon Theatre) is to embrace the library as a true community space by ceding control of library resources like funding, space, and staff time to groups of youth and adults from the community who want to plan and host their own public programming.

As the LAIP team outlined earlier this fall, we intend to get a lot more explicit about our commitment to social justice and inclusive library programming in 2017. If you have initiatives and programs you want to share around those ideas, we want to hear from you. Email us at libraryasincubatorproject@gmail.com.

We have been expanding our science kits in the
children's room in an effort to introduce non-traditional circulating items for over a year now. We have littleBits, Raspberry Pi 2, Sphero, Cubelets, KEVA planks and Makey Makeys. Our newest editions were the robots, Dash and BeeBot, which gained popularity after we had them out to test during the Hour of Code. I happen to be showing one of the kids the littleBits kit, since all the robotics kits were out, when I noticed some bits are just not holding up during circulation.

Our littleBits kit included Lego adapters, mounting boards, and the small starter kit which doesn't seem to be available anymore with 10 bits included. If you are new to littleBits, they are small magnetic pieces, each with their own function, that can be put together to make an electronic invention. Bits include lights, sensors, motors and speakers. You can integrate them into recyclables, Lego projects, sewing projects...you name it! For a while, we used them in house for makerspace activities but we decided to try to circulate them for personal patron use. If you are looking to go this route, here's some advice:

First thing to watch is the battery wire. You might want to electrical tape it because they are constantly breaking. I have already replaced this at least 3 times. I have no idea why there's exposed wires on there to begin with.

2nd thing to watch is the plastic screw driver which is necessary to change the color of lights on the LED or the pulse speed input so it's something that's necessary but apparently fragile as the head usually breaks off.

3rd thing that breaks continually is the vibrating motor output which also has an exposed wire between the motor itself and the bit. Perhaps electric tape would help in this instance too? Or just take my advice and get another output that's just as fun but less exposed like the Buzzer. I have been keeping my eye on the pressure sensor input as well since it says DO NOT BEND and yet it always comes back with a bit of a crease (but still works::knock on wood::). I might swap that out for the motion sensor input since it seems more durable. I would advise to take out anything with exposed wires or fragile components and save those for in house projects.

My other failed attempt at a science kit this year is the 3Doodler 2.0, the first plastic extruding 3D pen, which has too many nozzle and jamming issues. One caused by even a seasoned user like myself while prepping it for circulation. The nozzle broke straight off while I was trying to fix a jam. The previous user left filament in the pen which I can image happening often during circulation as well. Even though my boyfriend swears I have hulk hands, I WAS being careful and following the instructions to the letter. Here are some examples of the fine details to fixing jams with this pen:

Unscrew the nozzle only when the pen is hot (Spoiler: the nozzle isn't that secure in the removal tool once out so don't do it over your lap). It also makes references to "pulling out" the filament GENTLY or it could ruin the gears inside. Then using another special tool (which could get lost easily) to push filament through the pen, stopping when you feel resistance..this is all very detailed, delicate work that could occur at home with the patron or every time this comes back jammed to the librarian.

Even normal pen usage is quite detail oriented, you have to be sure that the temperature matches the filament being used and (spoiler: once out of the package PLA and ABS look the same!) So if you were going through with the kit, I'd only keep one or the other in there so they don't get mixed up.

So moral of this story is science kits are a wonderful thing to add to your library collection but there is always time to reflect on the number and delicacy of the pieces being circulated.

Today’s feature comes to us from visual artist Sue Willis, whose work titled The Upper Worlds is installed in The Corner Room at the NYPL’s Mid-Manhattan Library. Thanks to Curator and Art Librarian Arezoo Moseni for her help in assembling this feature! ~Laura

by Sue Willis

Located in The Corner Room, my exhibit is an expression of The Upper Worlds, where our energies are accumulated and mirrored back to us, causing harmony or destruction. The large site-specific exhibition is installed in the windows facing Fifth avenue, consisting of life-sized animals in porcelain and faux-fur, small human figures and the three columns of The Tree of Life, in silk flowers and mixed materials. Birds in flight are meant to connect the audience with The Upper Worlds. The windows reflect the city’s surrounding architecture, superimposing the modern world on both the natural habitat and the aftermath of destruction in two separate displays. The reflections, although beautiful, have ominous undertones. But a cause for hope is expressed through the energies of the idyllic habitat, meant to convey the unity and transcendence occurring through our collective positive energies. The concept continues in the room’s interior cabinets, containing horses, elephants and birds, in porcelain, resin and watercolor.

I became aware of this exhibition opportunity when Arezoo Moseni, the curator of Art in the Corner Room Exhibition Series, emailed me through my website and invited me to create a site-specific installation.

One of the biggest challenges of designing an installation for a public space involved how to protect the fragile work from being handled and the environments from being entered into by the public. Remarkably I was able to salvage the valuable 6 X 8 ft. sheets of thick Plexiglas and safely truck them to Mid-Manhattan Library, along with the habitats, trees and animals. But my first challenge upon being invited to create this installation was to conceive of ways to fill the vast display windows, collectively measuring 14 ft. wide by 16 ft. high by 4ft. deep. I decided my animal sculptures should be life-sized, and my priority aside from aesthetics and functionality was to construct them out of lightweight and sturdy material. I began by sculpting the heads and paws in porcelain, later positioning them onto bodies built over lightweight armatures with fake-fur overlays. I chose to animate the vertical space by suspending broad-winged birds and flowering vines from a 12′ high grid. Organizing every aspect of the fabrication, concept design, set-construction, budget and crowd funding to offset costs were additional challenges.

It means everything to me to show at The New York Public Library. I care that my work is seen by the general public, especially children, as it communicates something which affects all of us, the importance of being good caretakers of our planet, its organisms and habitats. It’s important to me that children care to assume this role as responsible custodians of Earth. I believe my work is understood by young children and a wide demographic, and the Library affords this.

Libraries have always been a place where I could quietly commune with a world of information. As a student before the computer age I was introduced to the idea of random encounters, where a search for a book would often lead to an unexpected text shelved next to the object of my search, which then lead to other surprise finds. As an adult I still relish the randomness associated with my search for library materials. I enjoy the element of surprise and always determine the finds to be serendipitous. As an educator I often seek the help of school librarians for new materials I can share with my students. There’s an intimacy in sharing a book while sitting within a circle of students that can’t be duplicated by projecting images on a wall. Students feel more involved, and even safe, perhaps because some of them recall a time when they shared this experience with parents.

Working with Arezoo Moseni was incredibly inspiring. She understood my ideas perfectly and allowed me full license to communicate my concept as I’d envisioned it. Her assistance and feedback during the installation was invaluable, as she was entirely connected and supportive of my goals. I was honored to work with her and trusted her completely.

The Mid-Manhattan Library installation provided an opportunity to create my largest and most complex installation and gave credence to the idea that if an artist persevered long enough, an opportunity would arise. My lifelong desire was to create something magical which could be viewed by a wide demographic and age group, and I was floored to be invited to install in the Corner Room. When I first met with Arezoo Moseni and understood what she was offering, I was captivated by the perfect fit of my concept to the space, and felt I’d entered the dimension where dreams are answered. But along with opportunities come challenges, replete with fear and sleepless nights. One of the larger lessons of being an artist is to overcome what appear as enormous obstacles and realize you’ve done it. The faith this reinforces in oneself and one’s process is invaluable.

Information about events associated with The Upper Worlds may be found at the NYPL website:

Many children and amateur engineers — and even professional engineers — fantasize about designing things for NASA. Most people aren’t aware that NASA works with the public quite often! One of the most interesting ways to interact with NASA is through their Centennial Challenges, where they hold public contests to […]

On Saturday, October 29, 2016, something very cool happened in three British public libraries. Capping off several months of ambitious partnerships, teen-centered workshops and arts-based collaborations, the late October event was both a celebration of libraries and an affirmation of the power of teenagers to redefine these public spaces as “places free of judgement.” The event, part of a larger initiative called A Place Free of Judgement, was brought to life by teens from the United Kingdom cities of Cannock, Telford and Worcester, teens who staged a thirteen hour takeover of their libraries with live performances (including a live web broadcast), storytelling, and a whole lot of art, personal stories and “strange ideas.”

Photo credit: Marcus Haydock

A Place Free of Judgement was a months-long initiative that brought together teens, the award-winning artists’ collective Blast Theory and author Tony White in order to “engage with new audiences and build library membership by breaking through barriers to engagement– both geographical and psychological and unite communities across the region.” Teens were encouraged through a series of workshops led by Blast Theory and Tony White to “re-imagine libraries, storytelling and their place in the world” at the Cannock Library, Telford Southwater Library and Worcester St John’s Library.

While the October event was a culmination of sorts, it is not the end of the project. A collaborative book created throughout the duration of A Place Free of Judgment will be published in 2017.

The entire endeavor was made possible by Grants for the Arts from Arts Council England.

We were lucky to connect with Sue Ball, Services & Activities Manager with the Staffordshire Libraries & Arts Service, who shed a little more light on this fascinating project.

Library as Incubator Project (LAIP): Talk about the teenage takeover aspect of this project. Why was it important to have teens at the center of this project?

Sue Ball (SB): In terms of having teens at the centre of the project – it was really important that we changed young people’s perceptions of libraries. Teens have always been one of those difficult groups to encourage into the library for us and by engaging with them we wanted the young people to see the library as a space for them and a relevant service.

LAIP: In the weeks since the teen takeover event, what has been the public response to the project?

SB: We find working with children much easier and we work with parents, schools and other organisations to access children. There is so much competition for young people’s time and they are busy thinking about exams and their future options it is understandable that public library use often drops off. During 2015/16 9.9% of young people aged 12-24 years in Staffordshire were active library members so we want the project to improve this figure.

LAIP: What did you learn from helping make A Place Free of Judgement a reality?

SB: In terms of learning I was impressed at the confidence & ability of the young people involved and it felt very uncomfortable to me initially to let go of the library and hand it over to the young people. It was really important to work with our IT Department on the project, especially as the control centre was at Cannock. I also learnt about the power of social media in young people’s lives. We know that many people viewed the live recordings.

Bryan Voell is currently the Local Arts Librarian for the Johnson County (KS) Library. He received his MLIS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2007 and has worked for public, academic, and research libraries in various capacities since 1997. He is also a collage artist and you can see more of his art here.

Today we hear from Malavika Shrikhande, who works in Cataloging at the St. Ambrose University Library in Davenport, Iowa. There is a new installation at SAU Library of newly redesigned book covers by students in a graphic design course at the university. Enjoy! ~Laura

The objective of “Recovering the Classics” was to choose a book from the Creative Action Network’s list of 100 classic titles and create a fresh, original design that brings a renewed visual life to the story while simultaneously learning how to create a seamless design around a 3-D object (in this case, book jacket).

The jacket designs were installed for display at the St. Ambrose University Library. Photos of the jackets and posters were taken by Assoc. Prof. Renee Meyer Ernst.

The covers and posters are designed by four students of Assoc. Prof. Renee Meyer Ernst’s, Art Graphic Design class at St. Ambrose University, Davenport, Iowa: Rena Kasch (Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland), Hannah Lingafelter (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz), Ashley St. Aubin (The Art of War) and Bart Van Rooijen (Around the World in Eighty Days).

Ernst’s enjoyed the idea of ‘taking something old and giving it a fresh life’. She added, it was important to uphold the individual integrity of the object (here the original book) and learning to work with the image and type together and integrate it structurally to form the poster and the book cover.

Tuesday, 13 December 2016

I was infuriated that there weren't any soldering videos out there for this so called "beginner" project so I made my own with mistakes and all. Keep in mind I've only soldered twice in my life. Once I made a Larson Scanner for a pumpkin (Battlestar Galactica Cylon) and the second time I made a Maker Bot badge.

Keeping with the Christmas theme for the makerspace events this month, I used the Velleman MK100 kit Christmas Tree. I will tell you out of the three projects the Maker Bot badge is where to start as a "beginner". When I hosted the class last Saturday, anyone who hadn't soldered before watched a brief intro video Soldering 101 from Adafruit (I just skipped to where there are close ups of the soldering procedure) and then I supervised while they made a Maker Bot badge. I am happy to say that all the kids successfully finished the tree and badge in an hour and they all worked (SPOILER: unlike my first try). The middle schoolers were on their own but Gr. 4-6 required a parent to help. It made my day that a dad and daughter pair came to complete the project.